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This section was my workspace for philosophy essays between July 2006 and April 2008.
I call this "Prehistoric Kilroy" because it gave me practice for more
disciplined essays in Kilroy Cafe.Also see my philophical blog and Twitter feed.

Issue #45, 12/12/2006

Being of Two Minds— or —
The Great Duality of Everything

By Glenn CampbellFamily Court Philosopher

I believe in UFOs, except that I don't believe in them.
Every UFO sighting can be explained either as a deliberate
deception or a flaw in human perception, but I wonder what
they want from us. UFOs are phony—and fascinating. I
spent a good portion of my life hunting for aliens, and I
found them, lots of them. I think there is nothing more
satisfying than hunting for aliens and not finding them. I
believe that the aliens have a plan for me, even if they
don't exist.

Confused? Don't be. Ambiguity is wonderful when you can find
it. I would love ambiguity if I didn't hate it so much.
Ambiguous people are useless, because you can't pin them
down. They are wafflers. They should all be shot.

It is said that the mark of true maturity is being able to
hold two conflicting ideas in your head at the same time. It
is also very immature to think this way. Children have no
problem with ambiguity — for example, having an
imaginary playmate who they acknowledge isn't real. Adults
always want to force the question: Is it real or isn't it?
They want nothing to do with imaginary playmates.
Adults can be total farts this way.

Adults have made commitments, so they want to know,
absolutely, that they made the right choice. If there were
two paths available, "A" and "B", and you chose "B", then
you want to believe that "B" is the best and "A" is
worthless. A lot of energy can be expended glorifying "B"
and denigrating "A", but the truth is, you just don't know.
All you know is that you made a choice, and your path was
changed because of it.

People hate ambiguity because it causes anxiety. If you
don't know whether you have made the right choices, then you
wake up every day wondering, "Should I be doing this?" Not
having a clear answer means that every day is a blank slate,
an open book, and this can be more stressful than any
prison.

Adults have difficulty with imaginary playmates because it
means letting go. They can read fiction and watch fantasies
on TV, but imagining something different for their own lives
is not usually pleasant. They prefer to say, "I am
perfectly happy doing what I am doing, and I can't imagine
any other life." Only under particularly stressful
conditions, like an asshole boss or an unfaithful spouse, is
one tempted to imagine something else.

Adults want a simple yes-or-no, black-or-white answer.
Religion seems to give them that, as do successful
politicians and salesmen. In our capitalist economy, there
is a big market for giving people the simple answers they
crave: Buy this product and your problems will be solved.

That's basically what advertizing does. Every day, people
wake up with a vague anxiety: Did I make the right choices?
Is this all there is to life? When they turn on the TV,
advertizing tells them what their problem is: lack of pulp
in their orange juice. It then proceeds to tell them how to
solve that problem: buy a certain brand of orange juice
with EXTRA PULP. For the rest of the day, they might try to
obtain this orange juice, and in a weird way, this quest
relieves their anxiety.

...Until the next morning, of course, when they have drank the
orange juice with extra pulp but they're still feeling
anxious.

If you talk to the average person about the problems of
the world, they will probably give you a simple
solution: Join my religion. Get rid of the Democrats. Get
rid of the Republicans. The government needs to do
something. Authorities need to investigate.

That's how most television news stories seem to end:
"Authorities are investigating." This gives the TV viewer a
sense of black-and-white closure. It was terrible event, but
authorities have stepped in now and are going to clean
things up. Problem solved.

Ambiguity recognizes that the problem is rarely solved.
"Authorities" rarely do much except throw someone in jail
or enact hysterical laws that only make matters worse. Huge
social problems continue to exist, just below the pleasant
surface of commercial society, but the average TV viewer
thinks things are all wrapped up. Authorities have taken
over, and things are going to be fine.

Things are not fine. They are never going to be fine.
There are never going to be any black-and-white answers to
anything; only complicated gray ones. Ambiguity is at
home in this environment.

At certain times, we are forced to choose: black or white.
If you are on jury, you have to decide: guilty or
not. If someone asks you to marry them, sooner or
later you are going to have to give them an answer: yes or
no. Life has plenty of mandatory decisions like this, where
we're not allowed to sit on the fence.

The rest of the time, why bother? Why should you make a
decision or declare your intentions when you don't have to?
Life can be much richer and more creative that way.

Did you make the right decisions in the past? You are never
going to know. You wake up in the morning with a certain set
of givens. How you arrived at them is quite irrelevant. Yes,
it's anxiety-producing, but your future hinges on the
present moment. You have to work with what you have, and
there are no simple answers.

I know this much about UFOs: Authorities don't have
the answers. Authorities are composed of idiots like you
and me who figure that someone else must know what is
going on. Nobody knows what is going on. Everybody is
groping around in the dark.